Happy Grumps Reviews

This review is written right after I beat the game in 100%. (90 mins playtime) Nice game! I enjoyed all the time I spent in the game, except the self-teaching game mechanics part. (I spent so much time learning about why I sometimes get happy grumps after I kill an enemy but sometime I don't, but considering the current state the game is in, I'm not gonna complain much about that) I first bought the game because of the art style. (in steam shop and in-game) The cartoon style drawing is fantastic, the pixel art is clean and consistent, just overall well-done. The base game design is simple but powerful and addictive. (Hero spread happiness by moving around the chessboard) Nice philosophy! And the gameplay it leads to is also fun, requires some logical thinking, but still straightforward. (Random stuff: The trinket that allows happy grumps to destroy all blocks around the destination they are moving towards is super op, simply a run-saver. The hammer that allows you to destroy all rocks in the map is also super op, can save around 10 turns by clearing multiple rooms in 1-2 turns.) There are still some minor problems I encounter, although not destroying my experience with the game. Here are my suggestions on the game: 1. The collapsing tiles should be more obvious in the map. There's one time I moved onto a tile without noticing, and I died instantly. I was super confused and thought the game crashed and restarted the run at first, until I realize the cause of the death. And even after this incident, I still forget that these tiles exist from time to time. I'll say it's mostly because how perfectly these tiles blend in with the other tiles. I think either making them obvious in the map or add a warning whenever you walk past or onto them could work. 2. The ice in world 2 is a bit unfair. Mostly because they're unpredictable. All enemies are predictable in movements, but a random ice spawning in the wrong place can destroy what I was planning to do. I think making them predictable like the enemies can make the game a bit less unfair to the players. 3. There's a bug that the map can spawn with the boss room in the way and no key in the path. Looking forward to new content!

This is an incredibly cute game. Cute characters and cute writing. I just wanna make the clouds happy. Game play wise, your objective is to get a direct line of sight on the enemies in each room, or indirectly by using the newly happy units to make others happy. The units move like chess pieces, and there are walls and other barriers that prevent movement and line of sight. The caveat is that you only have a certain amount of turns per level to find a key and defeat the boss. This means that the strategy comes from trying to use as few turns as possible to complete each room. This to me makes it feel kind of similar to match 3 games. You are trying to set up combos so you dont waste time moving things around individually. I think its pretty unique and fun. It is an Early Access game and I ran into a couple of issues. My game did crash once, but loaded up right at the turn I left off at. However I did have a room, when using the diagonally moving character, was unable to move away from the door because of an indestructible object and impassable object in both of the possible movement directions. This meant that I lost the run unfortunately. It is a rougelike so each run is a random level layout, and each room is pretty random. The roguelike elements are well done. The playable characters are unique, and the trinkets you can collect can impact your playstyle or make the game a tad easier. I do think it could use more variety of trinkets and such, but is fine as is. In terms of challenge, I think its fair. I managed to beat the only two levels currently in the game in roughly an hour; with a bit of luck of course. However there are two other unlockable characters which require clearing 100% of each level. After spending a few hours on it I have been unable to accomplish this. Because of the highly random layout of each room, using only a few turns per room for so long seems impossible. A couple rooms have an obvious 1 turn solution, and others take at least 6 because you can only immediately "attack" one enemy or future enemy. I think each room could stand to have either less enemies or walls, because having 8 different things barricaded in a corner is frustrating and feels like I had no chance. If the room doesn't allow for an ok start, things get out of hand quickly. As a personal preference, I find for a game about spreading happiness, the monochromatic art style makes it feel pretty lifeless, and gets to be a bore to look at after a while. I think the game could benefit from some more color. Overall I recommend the game if you are into puzzle games and roguelikes. I look forward to what will come from Early Access development.